My woodburning kitchen stove or humble hearth with a heart

My wood burning kitchen stove has no chrome it is plain, as plain and black as can be. It is modern in a way that is odd, it has a temperature dial and the draft turns with a knob, but even with these additions the stove is plain. Not ugly mind you, just plain. It has a good size fire box and gives off a great amount of heat. On the top of the stove is a rectangular box with a top that has a hole at either end and slides back and forth so one can pour in water as this is a basic water tank that just sits on top of the cooking surface and heats the water. In the rear of the tank is a comercial style coffee faucet; which makes it easy to drain water into a bucket.

There are no timers or designs attached, no lights or bells there are few moving parts, a draft knob and doors for the fire box, oven and ash pit. The oven is not self cleaning though remains clean if you are careful with your cooking. There is no on off switch either-to lower the temperature one moves the pot or pan about the flat surface from very hot to warm. If warm is to warm one uses a trivet. A trivet is a device usually of iron that sits on the stove and raises the pot up about an inch, more or less, and lets the heat escape and cools the pot. The cooking surface is steel, it can be brought to a dull sheen when scrubbing, but that is not needed the sheen won't make it work better. Only the cook can make the stove work better by feeding fuel at the rate needed to maintain or increase heat output or move the cooking food about the stove to regulate the cooking speed of the food.

I have moved a rocking chair near my stove as it is comfortable to sit by the stove and read or hold a pet and day dream near the stove's warmth. The crackle of the wood burning inside and the smell of wood burning and food cooking tugs my soul in some basic way. I guess, like the dog that sleeps several feet away from the stove, I know my comfort zone and hanker for it.